I had a chance to play CoC for the first time the other weekend and I want to consolidate and record my thoughts on it.
What I liked:
Fog of War
Immediately the first thing that I loved about CoC was the fog of war element in the game. Jump Off Points, not knowing where your opponent will deploy, ambushes, unknown support assets, the list goes on.
Smoke from Mortars
Mortar smoke in Bolt Action is quite useless in its current form, and can actually hinder you. For those unfamiliar, you designate a target. On a 6, you place a smoke marker on the target. On anything else, your OPPONENT gets to place the smoke marker up to 12" away. On the next turn you may again fire smoke, hitting on target on a 5, next turn on a 4, and so on. However more often than not your opponent can use the smoke to their advantage, making it better to use HE in almost all circumstances.
In CoC however, not only is it easier to hit on target (hitting on a 5 or 6), but rolling a 1-4 determines where and how much it scatters. The scatter itself is also only 6", so that youre still in the general area of the target. I loved how the smoke from the light mortars is so crucial to the British gameplan, who output less dice per squad than the Germans (thanks to the German LMGs), but get unlimited smoke rounds on their mortar team.
Tanks Firing Multiple Dice
One of my biggest gripes with Bolt Action is that many of the high caliber units are incredibly swingy. Tanks fire one shot in an all or nothing attack, and with games usually lasting for 6 turns, youre firing the main gun very few times. Combined with high point costs, means its really difficult to make heavier tanks worth it.
CoC solves this problem by just making the tanks roll multiple dice for their attacks. This way you have a chance of hurting even a few targets with a bad roll, and lessens the chance of you feeling bad for your tank missing its 1 dice roll.
Abilities
It was neat to see active abilities, such as the German Handgranaten, or leaders adding firepower to their LMG teams. The only real equivalent to this in Bolt Action is Snap To, which just lets you activate other units.
Sometimes I wish in Bolt Action there was a wider range of unit passives, such as Tough Fighter or Fanatic. Things like Master of the Hunt for the Finns (When you advance you may go on ambush if you do not fire) are really cool and set units apart from each other. In addition, most unit passives are focused around either movement or close combat. If we had something like "Reroll 1s when rolling to hit" but at a +1 or +2 per model, itd be cool to use it to separate the more elite units from the chaff.
Not Set Turn Limit
I liked the idea in CoC that for the defenders the way they win is by incapacitating the attacking force, rather than just playing til a certain turn and counting VPs. Leads to longer games, but lets you adapt your strategy on the fly, and without time crunch. Some scenarios in Bolt Action feel very strapped for time for the attacker, and sometimes almost impossible.
What I Didnt Like:
Individual Model LOS
Theres actually not that much I didnt like about CoC. However, the big one that stood out to me was how individuals in a squad cannot shoot through each other. While more realistic I suppose, it does get quite tedious, and I much prefer Bolt Actions system where individuals in a squad ignore each other for the purposes of firing.
Overall a very enjoyable first experience, and cant wait to play it again and explore more of the system!
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